


Screen my head beneath your wing

by Hagar



Series: Life of Miriam [3]
Category: Jewish Scripture & Legend, Midrash - Fandom, תנ"ך | Tanakh
Genre: Book: Deuteronomy, Book: Numbers, Canonical Character Death, Collection: Purimgifts Day 3, Community: purimgifts, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Midrash, Sibling Love, שלושת הרועים | The Three Shepherds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-13 23:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1244485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"And on the first month of the year the People came to the Desert of Zin, and set camp at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried. And the People had no water, and they mobbed upon Moses and Aaron."</i> - Numbers 20:1-2</p><p><i>"Because you did not believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the People, for this you shall not bring these People to the Land that I have given them. Those are the Water of Strife, that the People strove with the Lord and he sanctified them."</i> - Numbers 20:12-13</p>
            </blockquote>





	Screen my head beneath your wing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opalmatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/gifts).



> Title from HN Bialik's poem, as translated by Ze'ev Jabotinsky: "Be my mother, be my sister/Screen my head beneath your wing"...

 

 

 

  


 

Aaron closes the flap behind him. It is dark, inside Moses’s tent. Aaron comes and sits before his brother, and says not a word for some time.

When he speaks, he says: “I am sorry; I let you down.”

“It is I who struck the rock, Aaron, the first and the second time both,” Moses says, and Aaron replies: “And it is I who failed to pacify the People, I who failed to speak to them.”

Aaron bears this failure even as he bears the People for their - for his brother. It is Aaron’s duty to speak to the People, as the Lord speaks to Moses and as Moses speaks to Aaron. But the People look not to Aaron for Mercy but for Judgment, and so in Miriam’s departure Aaron failed in his grief, and in Aaron’s failure so failed Moses, in his grief and his anger.

Aaron accepts the Lord’s Judgment with not a word, even as he did these years before, when his two oldest sons were struck dead; he accepts this as he accepted that. He will accept this with love, if that is what is required of him now.

Miriam is dead.

Moses says: “She prophesied this. She said to me, None of us will set foot across the river, in the Land that the Lord promised to the Ancestors.”

“The Lord was kind enough to kiss away her breath first, so that she who delivered us from our mother’s womb need not witness our passage,” Aaron says, and Moses replies: “Had she not…”

Had Miriam not passed away, the Well would have not disappeared. Had the Well not disappeared, the People would have not strove with the two remaining Shepherds. Had the People not strove with the two remaining Shepherds, Moses and Aaron would have not fled to the Tabernacle of Congregation and fell upon their faces before the Lord. Had they not fallen on their faces before the Lord, Moses would have not been instructed to speak to the rock, but take his staff with him.

Had Aaron’s sister not passed away - but Miriam was dead and in his grief Aaron was struck dumb; And so Moses lifted his arm and struck the rock, even as he always has lifted his arm to strike.

Blessed is their generation, that was delivered from Egypt with an outstretched arm and a mighty hand; damned is their generation, that never ceased to strife.

Moses hides his face in his hands.

If love Aaron must, for the sake of peace, then this too he will accept with love: Miriam is dead; Aaron will die, and Moses will die; then and only then will the People enter the Land that the Lord has promised.

“We came of age in Egypt still. We, last of all,” Aaron says, and Moses replies, “I have longed to see the Land, but now I long for our sister.”

Aaron kneels before his brother and removes his hands from his face, so that he may meet Moses’s eyes. And Aaron says, “Rejoice. You have delivered us from bondage, there at the sea; perhaps at the river, they will be delivered from strife.”

Moses lifts his hand from Aaron’s to lay it against his brother’s forehead, even as Aaron sanctifies the People. And to his brother he answers, “Amen.”

**Author's Note:**

>  _"So spake Moshe unto all of Israel, there at the shore of the Yarden... The Lord heard the sound of your words; and he became furious, and swore, as said: Be it that not one of these people, this generation of evil - will see the good land that I had sworn to your ancestors to give. [..] Even with me the Lord became wrathful because of you, as said: Even you will not come there."_ \- Deuteronomy 1:1,35,37
> 
>  _“And die, there on this mountain that you climb, even as Aaron died at the tallest of mountains. For you have sacrileged my name among the People over the Water of Strife, there at Kadesh in the Desert of Zin.”_ \- Deuteronomy 32:50-51
> 
>  _"Oh Lord full of Mercy who dwells above, grant the deceased true peace on the wings of the Presence [...] the Lord of Mercy will screen the deceased under His wing for ever and ever..."_ [El male rachamim](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slWB1fco2kA) (Lord full of Mercy), the prayer for the deceased. (Memorial Day public performance linked, as personal funeral performances are not available on youtube.)
> 
>  _“Be my mother, be my sister/Screen my head beneath your wing/And my prayers, by God unanswered/To your bosom let me bring.”_ [הכניסיני](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PkbI_o2czY%0A), HN Bialik, translation by Ze’ev Jabotinsky. (Performance linked by Nechama Handel. For the full poem in Hebrew, English and Russian and more details, please see [here](http://forkedtongues.dreamwidth.org/41657.html).)


End file.
